When I look out at nightfall –
my eyes
brandish fangs and
The world is mine,
its sly, suggestive smile
a penance
a disguise
Gravid
with promise,
its children the heavy pendulum,
the hybrid eye

I stack bricks against the blaze
like blessings and
watch my own hearth
consumed by fire
succumb to the blood of the vine

We shape this earth,
hoard its sand in our bosoms
hang our heads
in the crucible of private ghosts
we call the sky
Our lives –
lodestones of the gallows
portraits of home
in the Earth’s warm harem

We are little seeds
driven by the greed to bloom
Startled by the risen moon’s albescence
and wait for
this hot farce to
drench our dreams,
in the hieroglyph of morning
So hungry we can barely swallow air
keep mute
let grass grow over us

When I look out at daybreak –
I see my heart,
slick bird with its
giant appetite –
make curious attempts to express
love,
flight
literacy
I am your fiction,
your climax
your death sentence
I sing or fall silent

So
it is your rebel tongue
twisting in my mouth,
back and forth
and again
over the hardwire of our geography
the absences
The words you meant to say when none were near enough
I lift the veil
I bless our human wound

Your greatest feat
is to resurrect its pieces
emblazon the past on your chest
soft and sentient
despite the cold of the linament
Remember the way I mourned your loss
That I couldn’t climb
the architecture of your deepest wishes

This night is safe from harm
We bring our sieves
Touch the nude river bottom with our hunger
Trade seven strings for bards’ gold